55 



long run for the well-being of Southeast. Now, Thome Bay does not 

 have the advantage of Sitka. Let us face it. You do have timber. 

 They have all the ingrown infrastructure, and they might be able 

 to survive on SEAHC and a few other things, but it is not nec- 

 essarily a healthy-type society. A retirement society is not always 

 the healthiest. You have to have that young mixture to make it 

 work, and Thorne Bay has always had that young mixture. 



I want to thank you. Jerry, you had something else? 



Mr. Mackie. Just in terms of what people feel — at least, I believe 

 some of the people that would support your approach to this legis- 

 lation feel that there is an organized effort on a national level with 

 preservationist groups — I think everybody in Alaska are environ- 

 mentalists. I believe that we care about our environment, but the 

 preservationists that want to lock it up and eliminate the timber 

 jobs have a war going with Louisiana Pacific and other corpora- 

 tions throughout the country for past records of pollution or other 

 types of things, but what they do not realize is that LP, for exam- 

 ple, LP is under new management, that they have — Governor 

 Knowles has traveled to meet with Mark Soon on several occasions 

 and talked about the need for environmental upgrades to the plant. 

 LP is spending $200 million to upgrade the facilities and so forth, 

 and they have no answer — the people that would like to continue 

 this battle with LP on a national level have no answer to the fami- 

 lies or the people in terms of the jobs that they have lost. So there 

 is a huge vacuum taking place of jobs going out with nobody having 

 anything to say about it here in the State, and it is because of a 

 national debate. 



So that is the things that I think people find most offensive, and 

 I think, depending on who you talk to throughout Southeast Alas- 

 ka, Congressman, as you well know, we are extremely diverse in 

 terms of people's opinions and their livelihoods and so forth. You 

 are going to get different opinions and different feelings about 

 things, but that is healthy, and that kind of debate is healthy. That 

 is why this hearing is healthy, to have that kind of diversity and 

 debate, but it should take place here in Alaska and not in Wash- 

 ington, D.C. That is the whole issue. And the particulars of the 

 management or the board feet and those kinds of things, those will 

 come, and I do not have the answers to that, but it should be made 

 by people in Alaska because it affects Alaskans. 



The Chairman. For you in the audience, we are having a hearing 

 on the extension of the contract on the 11th of this month back in 

 Washington, D.C. I am probably now nationwide famous by those 

 editorial pages. They do not explain it is $257,000,000 to be in- 

 vested. 



Now, some would say, "Why did we wait so long? Why did not 

 we follow British Columbia?" British Columbia, ITT Rayonier, 

 dumped pollutions into our water — into the fishing areas of our fish 

 for years, hundreds of years, and they are finally coming around 

 with a new plan. So I never looked at British Columbia as one of 

 those great examples of how it should be done. 



So the decision, I think, goes back to where we should — and be- 

 fore you leave, and this is just for something — I would like to quote 

 something because later on they will talk about Theodore Roo- 

 sevelt. I always get a kick out of how great Theodore Roosevelt was 



